“Our lives are at once ordinary and mythical. We live and die, age beautifully or full of wrinkles. We wake in the morning, buy yellow cheese, and hope we have enough money to pay for it. At the same instant we have these magnificent hearts that pump through all sorrow and all winters we are alive on the earth. We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded.”
Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
Tell your story and you can change the world. This is how we lived. This is what we ate. This is where we planted the tulip bulbs with a soup spoon, the bulbs that bloomed anyway. This table holds the memories of a thousand dinner stories, these chairs wear the stains of their jelly and play-doh hands. This house was made a home the first night we slept here, the night I cried because the windows had no coverings and neither did my heart.
Our house may burn down to the ground, but no one can take our stories. You may argue the existence of God in the world but you cannot debate how he has carried us. You may say it’s impossible to travel in time, but you didn’t see how God bent time in my favor just last week. You can talk me out of my money and my clothes and my food, but you cannot withdraw my hope. And hope can change the world. And the only way I can show you my hope is by telling you my stories.
This post is part of the series 31 Days to Change the World. If you would like to have Chatting at the Sky delivered to your inbox, subscribe here for free.
I have so enjoyed your series, Emily. Coming by each day for a little taste more. Coming by and finding another gentle invitation from the Lord to trust His love enough to step out. To live fully for Him. To let Him work through me.
Not too surprising that as I have felt the tug to step out and tell my story more, the enemy has stepped up his whispers on how ordinary my story is. How unnecessary it is for me to share my story. How unimpactful it would be.
So thank you. I needed these words this morning.
God is oh, so good.
This one gave me chills and teary eyes. Nothing can take our hope indeed. And hope does change the world. So we must tell stories. I love it.
No one can take our stories, and no one else can tell them either.
I love hearing your stories. They inspire me to tell my own in a better way. So, thank you for creating a place where story and hope can meet.
Girl, you have been my “virtual therapist” for the month. Just before I hit “publish post” this morning, I felt a wave of fear. “What am I doing telling my life like this? What am I doing revealing that it has been so very messy? Who in their right mind does this?”
And then this post. Thank you. Your words continue to inspire me to be brave.
Me, too!
I am often scared to tell my stories because I don’t know what people will think or say. I wonder if anyone will read or care or see my heart. But I do it anyways. Because I know no other way. Thank you for reminding me that in order to change the world I need to tell my stories. It was a reminder I needed this chilly morning.
Beautifully worded. Your writing is like a beath of air. I wrote about hope yesterday! Great minds, greater Spirit. ~di
I love this! I feel that sometimes it’s hard for me to “see” that I have hope until I write my own stories down and read them back…it’s like telling myself, “See, God was here for you when you weren’t sure how you’d make it then, and you did. He was there then, He’ll be here now.” And hope fills me again.
This post made me think of Romans 5. And Edie (the house burning part). And how grateful I am for hope, because sometimes that feels like all there is. But even if that’s all there is, it’s still an awful lot.
Your words never fail to move me. Never. There aren’t many writers about whom I can say that!
“You cannot withdraw my hope”
Favorite.
Relevant must be being good to you.
“…the night I cried because the windows had no coverings and neither did my heart.”
This is what writing does to me…how my heart is hanging out there, all bare and exposed, and I trust there’s purpose in the window to my soul–to who He created me to be.
It’s our life and to tell it is our worship.
“…and the only way I can show you my hope is by telling you my stories.” Love this. Telling our story has been a reoccuring theme for me lately… a scary invitation, but I’m learning the power of vulnerability and authenticity. God definitely uses our little stories to tell His bigger story… Thanks for sharing!
Emily – I am a lurker, subscribing to your wonderful posts and seldom (if ever?) commenting. So I decided to come out of the shadows today just to say ‘thank you’ for your powerful, thoughtful, exquisitely constructed posts every day of this series. Oh, my, what a gift. YOU are a gift and I thank you for your faithfulness and your mad skills. Just that – thank you.
so true
within our stories lies the wisdom for many
love and light